The Star in the West

THE LOOKING -GLASS 33 worthy pupil of the great masters we have had occa sion to name . Now that I have pointed out these certain influences , illustrating them by means of a few quotations , I intend to enter more into the history of his poetry and also the place it fills in the history of English poetry generally . This is not altogether an easy matter . Firstly , in selecting distinctive specimens it is difficult not to help being guided by individual taste ; secondly , the labour of sorting the finest out of the fine is a work which needs no small powers of application ; and thirdly , how often may not the individual selector be wrong in his choice ? But this latter difficulty is easily overcome by the reader , who has only to pick and choose for himself ; the work of an appreciative essayist being merely that of producing a characteristic display of what he considers the most attractive wares . It is not intended here in any way to assume immaculacy for our author , far from it, for faults are to be found here as in every other work , great or small , false rime and metre , half a step left out here and there , some times a whole one : but taking these poems as a whole , these lapses are remarkably few , and it must also be borne in mind that in nearly every case they are inten tional lapses from the orthodox rules of poetic cadence and metre . One command Crowley alone obeys , and that is : that all verse - rime , rhythm , and metre — to be considered as poetry , must be musical .' Without As a good example I will quote the following opening lines of a sonnet addressed to “ the Secretary of State ,” by Wilson Bonchord in Poems composed in Prison : When Crime's sad victim has been tried and brought Within the circle of the difficult sphere Which England's penal statutes appoint him here : To expiate by patient toil and thought . Neither the second nor third line scans ; nevertheless the P